Called the “Van Cliburn of today” by the BBC, pianist Alexander Kobrin has placed himself at the forefront of today's performing musicians. His prize winning performances have been praised for their brilliant technique, musicality, and emotional engagement with the audience. The New York Times has written that Mr. Kobrin was a “fastidious guide” to Schumann’s “otherworldly visions, pointing out hunters, flowers, haunted corners and friendly bowers, all captured in richly characterized vignettes.” “This was a performance that will be revered and remembered as a landmark of the regeneration of exceptional classical music in Central New York.”-critic wrote after Mr. Kobrin’s performance of Second Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms with Syracuse Symphony in Syracuse,NY.

In 2005, Mr. Kobrin was awarded the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, TX. His numerous successes in competitions also include top prizes at the Busoni International Piano Competition (First Prize), Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (Top Prize), Scottish International Piano Competition in Glasgow (First Prize)

Mr. Kobrin has performed with many of the world’s great orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Verdi, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Moscow Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Berliner Symphony, Chicago Sinfonietta, Swedish Radio Symphony, Birmingham Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with such conductors as Mikhail Pletnev, Mikhail Jurovsky, Mark Elder, Vassiliy Sinaisky, James Conlon, Claus Peter Flor, Alexander Lazarev, Vassiliy Petrenko and Yuri Bashmet.

He has appeared in recital at major halls worldwide, including the Avery Fisher Hall in New York, the Kennedy Centre in Washington, Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, Louvre Auditorium,Salle Gaveau and Salle Cortot in Paris, Munich Herkulesaal and Berliner Filarmonia Hall in Germany, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, Sheung Wan Civic Centre in Hong Kong, as well as Sala Verdi in Milan and many others. Other past performances have included recitals at Bass Hall for the Cliburn Series, the Washington Performing Arts Society, La Roque d'Antheron, the Ravinia Festival, the Beethoven Easter Festival, Busoni Festival , the renowned Klavier-Festival Ruhr, the Festival Musique dans le Grésivaudan ,the International Keyboard Institute & Festival, annual concert tours in Japan, China and Taiwan.

Though widely acclaimed as a performer, Mr. Kobrin’s teaching has been an inspiration to many students through his passion for music. From 2003 to 2010 he served on the faculty of the Russian State Gnessin’s Academy of Music. In 2010 Alexander Kobrin was named the L. Rexford Distinguished Chair in Piano at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, and since 2013 concurrently has been a member of the celebrated Artist Faculty of New York University’s Steinhardt School. In July 2017, Mr.Kobrin will join the faculty of the renowned Eastman School of Music in Rochster,NY. Mr. Kobrin has also given masterclasses in Europe and Asia, the International Piano Series and at the Conservatories of Japan and China.
Mr. Kobrin has been a jury member for many international piano competitions, including the Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano,"Prix Animato" in Paris, the Blüthner International Piano Competition in Vienna, E-Competition in Fairbanks, AK and the Neuhaus International Piano Festival in Moscow.

Mr. Kobrin has released recordings on the Harmonia Mundi, Quartz, and Centaur labels, covering a wide swath of the piano literature. His Schumann album,released on Centaur Records has been included into top-5 albums of the year in 2015 by Fanfare Magazine. Gramophone Magazine raved about his Cliburn Competition release on Harmonia Mundi, writing that “in [Rachmaninoff’s] Second Sonata (played in the 1931 revision), despite fire-storms of virtuosity, there is always room for everything to tell and Kobrin achieves a hypnotic sense of the music’s dark necromancy.”

Mr. Kobrin was born in 1980 in Moscow. At the age of five, he was enrolled in the world-famous Gnessin Special School of Music after which he attended the prestigious Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. His teachers have included renowned professors Tatiana Zelikman and Lev Naumov.

Five minutes of sprightly folkdance music warmed the audience Saturday for Symphoria's second masterworks concert of the 2014-2015 season. The program selections marked the 19th Century friendship of Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak, and the memorable performance highlighted a brilliant collaboration among the local artists, conductor Case Scaglione and pianist Alexander Kobrin.

The curtain raisers: Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 19," which Dvorak transcribed from four-hand piano to orchestra, and Dvorak's "Slavonic Dance No. 7," also originally for piano, immediately established Scaglione's communicative rapport with the musicians of Symphoria, who responded masterfully to his elegant, concise direction.

Dvorak's "Symphony No. 7 in D minor," the composer's most obvious bow to the traditional Germanic symphonic style of his day, won a standing ovation from the crowd. Dark in mood and tonal color, the music is grave and introspective throughout, starting with the somber opening of the first movement, "Allegro Maestoso." Movement two, "Poco Adagio," provides a lighter mood, which was beautifully conveyed by strings and soloists.

By the third movement, the scherzo, a vivacious dance rhythm provides buoyancy, and the musicians expertly conveyed energy and texture in the opening section as well as in the gentle respite of the central trio. But darkness prevails, leading into the multi-themed finale and an ending that speaks of staunch determination and resolve. Whatever message the composer intended in this symphony, which debuted in London in 1885, the music and the richness of the performance prompted the audience to stand and offer extended applause.

This was a performance that will be revered and remembered as a landmark of the regeneration of exceptional classical music in Central New York.
The standing ovation for Dvorak's symphony paled, however, when compared to the audience's enthusiastic reaction to Alexander Kobrin's performance on Brahms's "Piano Concerto No. 2," a huge, four-movement emotional masterpiece. This was a performance that will be revered and remembered as a landmark of the regeneration of exceptional classical music in Central New York.

A dignified, exquisitely played invitation on French horn opens the piece, and Kobrin's response on the piano immediately establishes him as a master, pulling every iota of drama and delight from the score as he, Scaglione, and Symphoria perform with exceptional unity. Passion rises to climactic heights in the second, highly dramatic movement, and Kobrin's virtuosity becomes increasingly evident.

An expertly performed cello solo opens the third movement, the andante, with sweet melody, which is embellished by piano, and clarinets are highlighted in the mid-section of the movement. By the final movement, dance-like and joyful, audience members were mesmerized by the performance, sensing the satisfaction of a thrilling conclusion but hating the idea of having the concert end.

When the final notes faded, the crowd leapt up as one, cheering as Kobrin and Scaglione embraced, then shouting and continuing to applaud as Symphoria soloists were recognized for their contributions. This Symphoria concert will be talked about years from now as a landmark moment in the return of a classical music orchestra to Central New York.

..."Kobrin unleashed a fiery, bright-toned account of Chopin’s Douze Études, Op 25. These technical exercises, each designed to highlight a different pianistic problem, were delivered with transparent clarity — just the job for the Summer Academy students in the audience, who gave Kobrin a well-deserved standing ovation at the end."Giles Woodforderead more...

..."Kobrin unleashed a fiery, bright-toned account of Chopin’s Douze Études, Op 25. These technical exercises, each designed to highlight a different pianistic problem, were delivered with transparent clarity — just the job for the Summer Academy students in the audience, who gave Kobrin a well-deserved standing ovation at the end."Giles Woodforderead more...

He surrendered neither the smoothness nor the dynamic fluidity that the modern piano allows, and he gave his sense of fantasy free rein, using a shapely bass line to suggest drama in the opening Allegro and creating an almost confessional spirit in the central Andante cantabile.Alann Kozinnread more...

The final notes had barely faded before the audience seemed to rise as one, cheering.Laura Stewart

His conceptions of music are always interesting, convincing [and] beautifully playedDonald Isler

He effortlessly generated a wide variety of tone colors and paid exquisite attention to the tiniest of phrasing details in Tchaikovsky’s war horse, the B-flat minor concerto.Jonathan Neufeld

I have left the best to last. I first heard 25 year-old Moscow-born Alexander Kobrin when I was chairman of the 1998 Scottish international Piano Competition. Then his first prize-winning performances were more athletically than musically motivated. Now his playing has broadened to become mernorably personal and stylish. In Rachmaninov’s Op 33 Etudes-tableaux, everything is boldly and vitally characterised, the vertiginous whirlwind of No 5 in E flat minor turned from the usual manic chase into a superbly shaded and inflected drama. Both here and in the Second Sonat a(played in the 1931 revision), despite fire-storms of virtuosity, there is always room for everything to tell and Kobrin achieves a hypnotic sense of the music's dark necromancy. Brahms's Paganini Variations(for Clara Schumann, his ‘witch' Variations) are awe-inspiringly assured and any lingering doubts are silenced by a special imaginative delicacy in Chopin’s B major Nocturne. Harmonia Mundi's lavish presentation comes in excellent sound.Bryce Morrison

…He played down the work's blockbuster qualities in favor of its lyricism, which he couched in a thoughtfully shaped, singing line. That isn't to say that he ignored the fireworks entirely, and when he addressed the barnstorming passages on their own terms, he did so with a steely edge and ample - if thoroughly controlled - forceAllan Kozinnread more...

Alex Kobrin’s interpretative musicianship was here at its very best, as he delivered a reading of considerable insight.Robert Matthew-Walker

What a depth of feeling in the pathetique [of the Haydn Sonata in F] Adagio, and what delicate touch to the Minuet with his celebratory manner! The Sonata in E minor was delivered with the same stroke of elegance, grace and spirit. Likewise [in] the performance of Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen op.15…sensitivity and gracefulness elevated the performance into a special treat for the ears…Kobrin knew how to set all the different kinds of tone colours and structures against each other to create contrast, and to illuminate tensions between light and shade, brightness and melancholy in a multiple of layers.Brunhild Schmelting

Images of shimmering water and airy bells emerged from the concerto's dreamy slow movement. Kobrin's rubato -- that is, his stretching of phrases -- was tasteful while still furnishing a sense of freedom and space. An etude-like virtuosity was given full expression in the final movement.Matthew Erikson